A study published in the March 2005 edition of the American Journal of Public Health found that homicide was a leading cause of death among pregnant women in the United States between 1991 and 1999. Data taken from the Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the pregnancy-associated homicide ratio was 1.7 per 100,000 live births.

A 2001 study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association said 20 percent of Maryland women who died during pregnancy were murdered. Researchers found the same trend in New York from 1987-1991 and in the Chicago area from 1986-1989. According to the CDC, approximately 324,000 pregnant women are hurt by an intimate partner or former partner each year.

Experts say that while pregnant women are more commonly targeted by men -- particularly spouses, boyfriends or exes -- they also need to be wary of other women. Each has very different reasons for targeting expectant mothers.

Men who kill pregnant women are most likely romantically involved with their victims and see the pregnancy and unborn child as obstacles and burdens in their lives. They may not want a child, may want to pursue an extramarital affair or may want to keep an affair secret.

"The usual reason when it involves a man is the [unborn] baby. The baby is causing a complication in his life," said Pat Brown, profiler and chief executive officer of The Pat Brown Criminal Profiling Agency.

Staff: Mentor

Perhaps the OP is in response to the discovery Saturday in Ohio of the deceased pregnant woman, Jessie Davis (26), who was apparently murdered by her boyfriend (police officer) and father of her 2-yr old son.

And there was of course the infamous Lacy Peterson case. Her husband (Scott Peterson) began an affair about the time she was pregnant, and then apparently murdered her. Possibly in addition to loss of intimacy, he was faced with the economic burden of a child, which he apparently resented.

The numbers in the article cited by MIH, 324,000 (~8% of ~4 million births annually) pregnant women are hurt by an intimate partner or former partner each year, are very disturbing. Other numbers are even more disturbing -
http://www.endabuse.org/resources/facts/ [Broken]

I find the numbers stunning and heartbreaking. How can people treat other human beings in such a way?

Rather than having an abortion, the prudent action would be to avoid abusive relationships, and exercise caution in entering into intimate relationships.

This is probably only one sad example of problems humans constantly experience, the roots of which are apparently too deep (or problematic, or whatever) to be dealt with in an efficient way. I believe primitivism and the lack of recieved love are two major ones.

It's a little hard to say. Looking at the data for women and mortality on the CDC site, homocide is not at the top of the list. The problem is that it is hard to find a comparable study restricted to women of childbearing age. The CDC statistics (I believe) include everything from infant females dying of birth defects to 90-year old grandmas dying from heart failure.
http://www.cdc.gov/women/lcod.htm [Broken]

I still found the reports about the pregnant women quite stunning! It would be interesting to see how the data stacks up side by side with women in the same age range who weren't pregnant at the time of death.

That homicide is the leading cause of death among pregnant women is by itself no indication that pregnant women are more likely to be murdered than those who are not pregnant.

This is true. I'm not sure why you're saying it, since no one is drawing that conclusion.

I think we're stuck in a quagmire of ill-defined terms. "leading cause of death" is pretty clear but "more likely than" is a bit vague. Do we mean that, all other factors being equal, a woman who is pregnant has a higher proability of being murdered than if she is not pregnant? There are many ways to interpret that phrase. I think we may need to address that before being able to answer the OP's ?.

At least we have no one here, as of yet, blame it on the Bush administration.

Why would we do that?

I don't agree that it is a phenomenon of society, instead I think it is a phenomenon of humanity. And idealism is not going to make it disappear.

It's probably a naive question (I apologize) but what is the difference in a phenomenon of society and phenomenon of humanity? Are you saying we would find the exact same murder statistics for pregnant women if we looked at the current data across all cultures of the world?